muzukashii

This movie is a Rorshach test. Every viewer will have a different opinion, although no one's opinion will be "best film ever." It's one of those movies you can watch and then talk about for an hour.

The movie has one big problem: terrible, terrible, direction. We almost turned it off after 15 minutes. I'm no director but, c'mon man, stop filming people walking and walking and walking. I don't know of any rule that you have to make movies a certain length. If there is one, don't make the movie longer by filming people walking. The whispering is also annoying. C'mon folks. Use your big people voices.

From the reviews I read I was pretty sure there were no Ninjas in this movie. That wasn't a surprise. I wanted to watch this because I read it was Mr. Miyagi's last movie. I thought maybe Daniel-san would come in and win the tournament at the end.

After about an hour of this being the worst movie ever, the plot twist made it kind of interesting. It explained a lot of the crappiness at the beginning of the movie. It explained some of Mr. Miyagi's earlier incoherent babbling which really seemed like bad editing at the time. It explained some of the campy fx at the beginning. Unfortunately, it couldn't explain or fix the bad directing.

It's too bad that this director ruined what could have been a really good film.

If you're going to watch it, here's some advice. Make fun of it for an hour (ala MST3K) to pass the time. Then, if the plot twist gets you interested you'll enjoy the rest of the film. If not then just keep making fun of it. Sometimes the bad movies are fun to watch just for the sake of making fun of them.

There were a lot of points in the movie where you want laugh and poke fun at the directing. Still, it was an hour and 20 minutes of entertainment. I'm no Cena fan, but he did a decent job. I liked Robert Patrick's character. It definitely would have been a better movie with a better director. It was like they threw a movie together as quickly as possible. No time was invested in character or plot development. In the first five minutes, you think you're watching the opening scene from 'The Naked Gun' with Leslie Nielsen. Then it turns into the opening scene from 'Major Payne. ' Even with all it's faults, I thought it was an entertaining movie. Isn't that the purpose of a movie anyway? It was 30x better than that awful 'V for Vendetta.' That was two hours of my life I'll never get back.

Imagine Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor playing the lead roles in 'Zorro, the Gay Blade.' The performances of Hugo Weaving and Natalie Portman were terrific but the movie was just plain silly. There was so much left-wing crap in the plot that Michael Moore should have been given an honorary producer credit. So, if I understand correctly, the U.S. war in Iraq caused Britain to elect a religious leader who brainwashed the entire country to...never mind. It really doesn't matter. David Lloyd and Alan Moore apparently watch too much BBC for their own good.

Natalie Portman's performance made the movie bearable to watch, but it raises an obvious question. Weren't there any British actresses available? What about Rachel Weiz? Natalie's labored accent brings back memories of Brad Pitt's butcher-job in 'The Devil's Own.' It is a distraction from the rest of the movie.